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Protestant 
Primer ^ 



by CLARENCE SEIDENSPINNER 



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A 

PROTESTANT 

PRIMER 



by 
CLARENCE SEIDENSPINNER 



"Be ready always to give an answer to 
every man that asJ{eth you a reason of 
the hope that is in you," 1 Peter 3:15 



TIDINGS 

1908 Grand Avenue 

Nashville 4, Tennessee 






DEDICATION 

To my congregation 

First Methodist Church 

Racine, Wisconsin 

and 

To all congregations everywhere 
who worship the Father 
in spirit and in truth 



Copyright, 1947 
General Board of Evangelism 
THE METHODIST CHURCH 



PREFACE 

Fortunate indeed is the Christian who can give a reason for the 
faith that is within him. Many a person would find it hard to ex- 
plain the nature of his religion and the character of the church to 
which he belongs. For this reason A Protestant Primer has been 
written. In a brief but adequate way it will help you to understand 
the Protestant interpretation of the Christian reHgion and the nature 
of the Protestant Christian Church. 

You need this information for two important reasons. First, the 
quality of your very life depends upon it. If religion is worth staking 
your "goods and fortune and sacred honor" upon, then you had 
better know what that religion is all about. Just as every case of 
illness calls forth the accurate and complete knowledge of medicine 
which a physician possesses; so every concrete situation and problem 
of life calls forth all that you think and feel concerning religion. If 
your knowledge of religion is inadequate or inaccurate, you will make 
a poor decision in regard to the problem. You need to know in order 
to act with Christian intelligence. 

Take an example. Perhaps you have never united with the church 
because you have thought that people could be good Christians with- 
out being good churchmen. You have thought that by obeying the 
ethical teachings of Jesus, and by some attempt at prayer with God, 
that you were leading the Christian life. Along comes a man some 
day who urges you to unite with the church and who says that such 
membership is necessary for your salvation. You face a choice. What 
shall you do.^ In order to make an intelhgent decision, either to remain 
as you are or to unite with the church, you will need to know what the 
Protestant Church itself thinks about the necessity of membership 
within its fellowship. 

Take other examples. Perhaps you are an employer or a school 
principal or the executive head of some other enterprise. A problem 
arises which affects the action and well-being of your associates. How 
do you propose to solve the problem? Will you call them together 
and ask them to express themselves regarding the matter and perhaps 

3 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

even come to a collective decision, or will you in your executive 
capacity make a decision of your own in the interest of eflSciency and 
the well-being of the enterprise? If you are to function as a Christian 
in such a situation, you will need to know the spirit of Protestant 
Christianity because it will help you at this important point. 

Or perhaps you are a member of the library board. One day a 
complaint comes to the board regarding a particular book which has 
been offensive to the reader because of its political or social or moral 
point of view. He asks that the book be withdrawn from circulation. 
What will be your position at the board meeting? How far are you 
willing to support the censorship of the public's reading? If you 
know the spirit of Protestant Christianity you will be helped in making 
your decision. 

Now the second reason why you need to be informed regarding 
your Protestant Christianity is a social one. There are times when 
you want to share that faith with others. Any number of situations 
arise which prompt this desire on your part. Perhaps it is an argu- 
ment. You are trying to justify the Protestant position as opposed to 
that of the Catholic position. Are you able to state your case with 
accuracy and conviction? Perhaps a friend comes to you as Nicodemus 
came to Jesus and asks you in all serious sincerity about the value of 
religion for the individual. Can you tell him all about it? Can you 
tell him what religion has meant to you and what that religion is like? 
Can you answer his questions with intelligence, accuracy, and per- 
suasion? Only if you know what your Protestant Christianity is like 
will you be able to share it with others. 

Here, then, is sort of a Baedeker that will help you to feel more at 
home in the Protestant Christian Church. If you are looking for 
something anti-Catholic, you will not find it here. That is not the 
purpose of the guide. Rather, you will find an explanation of your 
Protestant Christian position: its origin and emergence out of Catholic 
Christianity, its body of religious belief, the organization of its church 
life and its essential spirit and program of action. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I— OUR HISTORY 7 

1. The First Age of the Church 9 

2. The Old Catholic Church 10 

3. The Medieval Church 12 

4. The Reformation 15 

5. The Development of the Reformation 19 

II— OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP 25 

1. The Protestant Spirit 27 

2. Protestant Beliefs 30 

God 31 

Christ 31 

Holy Spirit 32 

The Church 32 

Forgiveness of Sins 32 

Life Everlasting 33 

3. Beliefs Distinctive with Protestant Christianity 33 

Justification by Faith 33 

The Scriptures 36 

The Church 36 

The Sacraments 37 

4. The Edinburgh Confession 38 

5. Our Worship 39 

6. Our Membership 41 

5 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

III— OUR CHURCH GOVERNfMENT 43 

1. Background 45 

2. Catholic Organization 46 

3. The Protestant Plan . . , 48 

Episcopal 48 

Presbyterian 50 

The Congregational 51 

4. Nature and Strength of the Churches 52 

5. The Unity of Protestantism 53 

EPILOGUE— THE FRUITS OF PROTESTANTISM 59 



HISTORY 



If you ask a member of a Protestant Church today what it means 
to be a Protestant, he is likely to answer that a Protestant does not 
have to go to church unless he wants to. Beyond that he sees no 
difference and recognizes no benefits. 

Had you asked that question in the home where Wesley was 
reared, you would have gotten a recitation of the points of Protes- 
tantism as accurate as the enumeration of the Ten Commandments 
or the axioms of mathematics. They knew what the Reformation 
had brought into their religious life. 

— The Pattern of a Church, Corson 



CHAPTER ONE 

OUR HISTORY 

1. THE FIRST AGE OF THE CHURCH 

Protestant Christianity was born with Jesus. It came to magnificent 
choral expression in the song attributed to the angels on that nativity 
night so long ago, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace 
and good will toward men." Our feeling about man's place in the 
world is exacdy that. To God must be given the glory and to Him 
alone, and to man must be given the opportunity and the responsibility 
to work with God and with one another for peace and cooperation 
and loving kindness upon the earth. 

This spirit developed with the growing ministry of Jesus. It came 
to expression in His initial message which the gospel tells us was this, 
"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." It came to ex- 
pression again in Jesus' willingness to cast aside tradition that had 
been worn out in order that the free spirit might meet the new de- 
mands of the present day. Said He, "Ye have heard that it was said 
by them of old . . . but I say unto you. . . ." Again and again Jesus 
talked this way. It flowered into beautiful fruitage in the acts of mercy 
and healing and teaching in which Jesus engaged, and finally in that 
superb and supreme act of dedication and sacrificial love that we 
know as the crucifixion. 

This spirit became part of the communal foundation of the early 
church. The early church was characterized by a wonderful spirit of 
togetherness. The Book of Acts tells us that at first the Christians 
had all things in common. It was an experience of democracy, of 
sharing and of fellowship. To be sure, leaders developed with special 
functions to perform; but, as Paul points out in his Corinthian and 
Ephesian letters, these various functions were necessary and no one 
performing any of them ought to think more highly of himself than 
he might think of other people performing different functions. You 
remember what he said: 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

''Now you are the body of Christ and individually members 

of it. 
And God has appointed in the church first aposdes, second 

prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then 

healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds 

of tongues. 
Are all aposdes? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all 

work miracles? 
Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? 

Do all interpret?" (1 Corinthians 12:27-30.) 

2. THE OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH 

In every aspect of its life the church grew rapidly. Its membershin 
pushed into the whole Roman empire and became so large that it 
appeared as a danger to some of the emperors. Its organizational life 
also developed and the clerical orders appeared: bishops, presbyters, 
deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers, and janitors. 

Authority was gradually centralized in the bishop as the church 
emerged out of this early period and became less communal and 
democratic. By 250 a.d. we have Cyprian who was bishop of Cyprus 
saying this: "The foundation of the church is the unity of the 
bishops.*' Some of these bishops became very important in their 
poUtical and ecclesiastical influence and were called patriarchs. This 
was especially true of the bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, 
Rome, and later Constantinople. 

This spirit of ecclesiasticism which characterized the old Catholic 
church came to expression in the growing philosophy of the church 
about itself. In 117 a.d. Ignatius, writing to the Smyrnaeans, said, 
"Wheresoever the bishops shall appear, there will the people also be." 
Shordy after Irenaeus of Lyons laid the foundation of the Catholic 
theology when he taught that participation in the sacraments and 
obedience to the church were necessary to salvation. And it was 
Cyprian who gave full expression to Catholic emphasis when he 
said, "There is one God, and Christ is one, and there is one church, 
and one chair founded upon the rock by the word of the Lord. Who- 
ever he may be and whatever he may be, he who is not in the church 

10 



OUR HISTORY 

of Christ is not a Christian. He can no longer have God for his 
father who has not the church for his mother." 

This tightening of the bonds of church membership enabled the 
church to face the dangerous persecutions which successively dis- 
turbed its life for the first 250 years. From the Domitian persecution 
of 90 A.D. to the final phase of persecution under Diocletian at the be- 
ginning of the fourth century, the Christian church had to face wave 
upon wave of suppression. Though some of the Christians knuckled 
imder to this social pressure, the body of the church remained loyal 
and grew with astonishing rapidity. Then an amazing thing hap- 
pened that turned the stream of European history. In 311 a.d. the 
Edict of Toleration was issued and in 312 a.d. Constantine issued 
the Edict of Freedom, and Christianity gradually began to achieve 
recognition as the official religion of the Roman Empire. 

This tightening of the bonds of church membership also enabled 
the church to retain its integrity in the midst of heresy. Many strange 
perversions of the Christian faith appeared in those early days which 
might well have diluted the pure gospel of Christ with such fantasy 
that by now we would have no accurate idea of what Jesus really 
taught. The church successively met such heresy as Gnosticism, Mon- 
tanism, the Donatist heresy, and most dangerous of all, Arianism, 
which would have made us Unitarians instead of Trinitarians. 

These heresies produced heated discussions and at last the great 
church councils met which formulated the historic Confessions of 
Faith which we call Creeds. For example, the first general council 
was held in 325 at Nicaea and formulated the Nicene Creed which 
upheld the Deity of Christ. This was modified at the second general 
council held at Constantinople in 381 a.d. to our present Nicene Creed 
which is used in many Protestant churches and is now included in 
the Methodist Boo\ of Worship. This whole period was one of 
grovnh and development in the thinking, the worship, the member- 
ship and the power of the church. Great theologians and great church- 
men appeared. This is the period in which the church rooted itself so 
deeply on the earth that it can never be uprooted again. 

Augustine marked the transition from the old Catholic church to 
the medieval period. He was one of the greatest and most extraordi- 

11 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

nary men of the church, for in his faith both Catholic and Protestant 
tendencies came to expression. 

He accepted the traditional Catholic conception of the church and 
declared that the four marks of the church which characterized the 
pure church of Christ were: 

1. Unity, and the bonds of unity are faith and love. Heretics 
violate the former and schismatics the latter. 

2. Sanctity, which comes from the church* possessed of the 
sacraments. 

3. Apostolicity, for the church is founded by the aposdes 
and is in possession of their writings and doctrines. 

4. Catholicity, which results in the universal spread of the 
church. 

Protestant tendencies in Augustine came to expression in his 
personal piety, his teaching devotion, and in the manner of his con- 
version. For thirty-two years he lived the life of a pagan. Then, as a 
brilliant teacher of rhetoric in the city of Milan, he listened to the 
preaching of Bishop Ambrose and under his preaching was moved 
at last to a genuine conversion experience which he describes in one 
of his famous books. The Confessions, This conversion led to a long 
life of useful service for the church and to a simple Christ-fellowship 
which has often characterized the Protestant Christian spirit. 

3. THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 

The Protestant spirit was almost lost during the medieval period. 
The political situation was chaotic and confusing. The Roman im- 
perial power had broken down in the West and for a time there were 
no states or rulers and the people were under the spasmodic control 
of adventurers who would seize the casde or countryside and rvde 
for a while. Feudalism developed with its grouping of people around 
local rulers for mutual protection. 

All during this period there were conflict and bargaining with the 
church, particularly with the papacy. Both in England and in Europe 
aspiring rulers used Christianity as a unifying force to preserve their 
conquests. By the time of Charles the Great (Charlemagne) in 

12 



OUR HISTORY 

771 A.D. both pope and king began to dream of a revived Roman 
Empire. The king conceived of this empire as being ruled by a great 
Caesar, and the pope dreamed of a Caesar anointed and guided by 
himself, for he claimed that he held the keys of the kingdom and could 
excommunicate even a king. The power of the pope over the emperor 
was given dramatic form on Christmas in 800 a.d., when the pope 
placed the imperial crown on Charlemagne's head while he was 
kneeling in St. Peter's Church in Rome. 

This was the period of the great Crusades, the first of which, under 
the guidance of Pope Urban II and a feudal nobility, set out to con- 
quer the whole Eastern Empire in the name of Christ. One after an- 
other of these crusades set forth under the direction of the church. 
Most of them were abortive. Some of them, like the Children's Cru- 
sade of 1212, were terrible in their loss of life. The church lost prestige 
through the Crusades but they contributed intellectually to Europe, be- 
cause important knowledge and culture were put into circulation as a 
result of this movement of people across Europe. 

During this period the great monastic movement of the Catholic 
Church developed, including the Franciscan movement, at the heart 
of which was that amazing saint with the pure Protestant spirit, 
Francis of Assisi, who lived from 1181 to 1226. He was born to 
wealth, but as a young man was converted to a new relationship to 
Christ, voluntarily gave up his wealth and led a life of simple and 
humble service in the name of Christ. He was one of the most beauti- 
ful spirits that Christianity has ever produced. This period also wit- 
nessed the separation of the Eastern Catholic Church and the Western 
Church which now we know as the Roman Catholic Church. 

There had been feeling between these two sections of Christendom 
for years and it came to a head in 1054 when the patriarch of Con- 
stantinople issued a letter condemning some of the practices of the 
West and the pope reciprocated by sending an emissary to Constanti- 
nople excommunicating the patriarch there. This date is usually 
accepted as the one which finally marked the separation of the East 
and West. Here is the first great schism in Christendom. 

Typical Catholic theology developed during the later medieval 
period and was known as the scholastic movement. The most famous 

13 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

exponent of this theology was Thomas Aquinas who lived from 1225 
to 1274. His point of view is the prevailing Catholic theology today 
and is known as Thomism. It was Thomas Aquinas who developed 
such typical Catholic doctrines as these: grace comes to man through 
the different channels of the sacraments: baptism, confirmation, the 
Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, ordination, and matrimony. He 
developed the doctrine of transubstantiation which taught that in the 
miracle of the mass the bread and wine, called the accidents, remain 
unaltered, but the substance — namely, the heart of the bread and 
wine — is transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ, both 
of which are present in either element. He also developed the idea of 
penance. Though God forgives the sinner and sets aside the eternal 
punishment which he rightly deserves, certain temporal penalties 
remain to be fulfilled as a result of his sin and that satisfy the sinner's 
offense against God. It is the role of the preist to impose these penal- 
ties, and when they have been met the priest pronounces absolution 
from sin. Here, of course, is the secret of the great control of the 
Roman priesthood over the laity, for until sin is absolved by the 
priest the sinner stands in danger of eternal danmation. Thomas 
Aquinas contributed to the practice arising from the belief that re- 
mission of some of these temporal penalties could be obtained by the 
purchase of indulgences. Christ and the saints had accumulated a 
boundless treasury of merits in heaven by their good lives. Some of the 
merits could be bought by sinners and used to square up their moral 
accounts. The church soon came to see the financial possibilities of 
this particular theological doctrine. 

Against this growing control of the church over its people and the 
political bargaining of the church with the temporal rulers, and the 
general exploitation of the wealth by the church, certain people began 
to protest. As far back as 910 a new form of the monastic movement, 
originating in Cluny, sought to purify certain abuses that had begun to 
develop. Particularly did it protest against the practice on the part of 
the bishops of giving the clerical office for money and against the 
practices of the uncelibate clergy who either married or engaged in 
concubinage. 

The voice of John Wyclifle was raised in England during the 

14 



OUR HISTORY 

fourteenth century. He was an Oxford theologian with a place of 
great prestige who secured the enmity of the church when he gave a 
series of lectures on civil lordship, in which he pointed out that an 
unworthy ecclesiastic had no claim to his oiBfice or its possessions. He 
also believed that the people should possess the Holy Scriptures in 
the English language and he and his associates translated the Bible 
and circulated it widely. Though he was too popular to be molested 
personally, his Oxford lectureship was taken from him and his 
activities were gready circimiscribed. 

In Europe the voice of John Huss was raised against the exploita- 
tion of the church. In 1402 he became a preacher in one of the chapels 
of Prague and began to preach the general point of view developed by 
Wycliffe. Unfortunately, John Huss was involved in some of the local 
poHtics of Prague and had the misfortune to be elected rector of the 
University of Prague by the wrong political party. It was no wonder 
that when the church council met in 1415 that his Bohemian enemies 
should prefer charges against him as a heretic. In that year he was 
condemned by the council and burned to death as a heretic. Such 
men did not really anticipate the Protestant Christian point of view 
but rather its spirit, in seeking to reform the church of abuses which 
its great age had developed and tolerated. Meanwhile, the great 
Renaissance movement took hold of the imagination of Europe and 
developed a cultural setting which made possible the Protestant Chris- 
tian Movement, which has come in history to be called the Reforma- 
tion. 

4. THE REFORMATION 

It was Martin Luther who related religion to this new Renaissance 
spirit. He was born in 1483 and died in 1546. His life spanned an 
important section of this whole renaissance of the human spirit. It was 
he who introduced into the religion of his day the stream of free 
thinking and self-criticism. The minds of multitudes were shackled 
by the terror of heresy and this terror Martin Luther helped to dis- 
sipate by the boldness and freedom of his own mind and action. 

He bcUeved in the abiUty of a sincere and enlightened mind to 
arrive at true conclusions when that mind earnesdy sought to co- 

15 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

Operate with God in the thinking process. He also believed that such 
minds should criticize the body of the church to which it belonged, 
and thereby redeem that body from sin and selfishness and error 
into which it may sometimes fall. This freedom of the human spirit 
to stand on its own feet before God is the heart of Protestant Chris- 
tianity. 

It was back in 1517 that Martin Luther made his great attack on 
religious abuses. At that time he was a monk, a professor and an 
administrator at the Augustinian monastery in the German city of 
Wittenberg. 

This attack was prompted by a sales campaign of indulgence pro- 
moted by the monk Tetzel, and sponsored by Pope Leo X. At that 
time Catholic practices allowed the substitution of indulgences for 
penance and the pope used this method to raise funds for the building 
of the new cathedral of St. Peter at Rome. Tetzel moved into Germany 
to raise these funds and touched the stream of human behavior at its 
most susceptible points. Said he, "Do you not hear your dead parents 
crying out, *Have mercy upon us. We are in sore pain and you can 
set us free for a mere pittance. We have borne you, we have trained 
and educated you, we have left you all our property, and you are so 
hardhearted and cruel that you leave us to roast in the flames. Won't 
you get us an early release?' " 

To Luther religion was an earnest matter, and this commercializa- 
tion of such a sacred matter as sin and repentance thoroughly aroused 
him. Therefore, on October 31, 1517, the date now recognized as 
Reformation Day, he posted upon the church door at Wittenberg 
ninety-five theses or propositions which he proposed to debate. These 
propositions considered a number of the positions of the church and 
really constituted an act of human freedom as one thinking, sincere 
individual sought to examine and criticize and to evaluate the insti- 
tution to which he belonged. 

A chorus of approval followed this action of Luther. Naturally, 
high church oflScials were not very happy about this and Luther was 
sunmioned to Rome in the summer of 1518. He had his case trans- 
ferred to Germany, however, and special representatives were sent to 
deal with him. 

16 



OUR HISTORY 

The event which produced the final break between Luther and 
Rome, however, was the debate at Leipsic in 1519 with Dr. Eck. It 
was at this point that Luther denied the infallible authority of the 
church over a man's conscience and appealed to the individual's own 
sense of right. Here is the Protestant spirit at work in reformation. 

The only possible course left to the church was to excommimicatc 
Luther. This was done in 1520. Excommunication is never to be taken 
lighdy, for to be outside of the church is an exceedingly serious 
thing. Only a careful and sincere thinker has any moral or intellec- 
tual right to appeal to his own conscience. Does one who does not 
know the theology of the church, its history and its tradition, have a 
right to make his own theology? Luther had that right, however. 
For years he had been a careful student and a sincere Christian monk 
in the Augustinian order. When the notice of excommunication 
came, which was called a papal bull, he burned it in the public 
square and declared that a new church was needed. 

In those days this was not only religious insubordination but also 
political insubordination. Therefore, the emperor acted and sum- 
moned Luther to a council at Worms in 1521. It was at this council 
that he uttered the famous words, "I cannot do otherwise. Here I 
stand. God help me. Amen." The council condemned him and 
banned him from the realm. He had strong political friends, how- 
ever, who were in sympathy with his movement and they hid him for 
a while in a casde at Wartburg. The next year he appeared at his old 
town of Wittenberg and remained unmolested because he was pro- 
tected by the provincial political rulers. He spent the rest of his life 
stabilizing the new movement in Germany. He married and setded 
down in Wittenberg and became the great Lutheran leader. 

Martin Luther laid the basis for all future Protestant thinking. He 
opposed the traditional Catholic conception of the church as con- 
sisting primarily of the hierarchy or episcopate. He believed that no 
fundamental privileges were given by God to the bishops 
which did not also belong by right to every Christian. He thought 
of ordination as only a human arrangement by which the congrega- 
tion delegates to certain individuals the right to preach the Word 
and celebrate the sacraments in the name and by the authority of all. 

17 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

As everyone knows> he taught the right of the individual Christian 
to interpret the Bible for himself. Exercising this right in his own in- 
terpretation of the Bible, he anticipated many of the positions which 
later scholarship developed. He also made the Bible available for his 
people by providing a translation of the Scriptures into the German 
language. 

Perhaps he is best known as a theologian for the way in which he 
came to grips with one of the problems of religion — ^namely, the 
forgiveness of sins and the matter of consequent salvation. While a 
monk in the Augustinian order, he participated in many of the disci- 
plines of prayer and fasting and self-denial in the attempt to secure a 
deep inner conviction of his own forgiveness. This he failed to ex- 
perience until his reading of Paul's letter to the church at Rome 
helped him to readjust his thought regarding man's relation to God. 
Here he came to realize that even though man was an inveterate 
sinner, yet such was the kindness of God that those who professed 
faith in Christ and who made a sincere and loving attempt to follow 
Him, that they took upon themselves some of the righteousness of 
Christ and were enabled to stand in the presence of God conscious of 
their forgiveness. Now Martin Luther arrived at this through ex- 
perience and in the legalistic language of Paul's letter to Rome, he 
called it justification by faith. He was attempting to clarify, and 
indeed did clarify, the fact that forgiveness is a gift from God which 
comes through the faith of the recipient. Man cannot work for this 
gift or buy it through his acts of charity and personal service. It can 
only come through his uplifted heart of faith. Luther might have 
come to this conviction, not through the legalistic language of Rome, 
but through the simple story of Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son 
where the same simple and wonderful idea is clarified. At any rate, this 
conception of salvation as a gift from God, this thought of justifica- 
tion by faith and faith alone, was an important contribution of Luther 
to the Reformation movement. 

Luther was not greatly concerned about the ceremonies and liturgy 
of the chiirch. He purged the mass of its transubstantiation, of its 
saint worship and intercession, and translated it into the German 
idiom of the people and thus provided them with the Lutheran 

18 



OUR HISTORY 

service of Holy Communion. He also provided, through daily services, 
for the worship of the Lutheran Christians but taught that it made 
litde difference as to whether or not this worship was celebrated in a 
simple or elaborate fashion, so long as it was sincerely done. 

Here then was the father of the entire Reformation movement. In 
one way or another the later reformers were dependent upon the 
advance and courageous work of Martin Luther himself. 

5. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REFORMATION 

In the resurgence of its life the Protestant spirit often expressed 
itself with the utmost abandon. This occurred coincidental with the 
Lutheran Reformation in Germany all over the Western civilized 
world and was responsible for the rise of various Christian denomina- 
tions. 

In Switzerland, for example, the Reformation began in 1522 in 
Ziirich under Zwingli. He was an iconoclastic priest who for 
years opposed the mercenary soldiering. He felt that for the Swiss 
Government to sell its people into foreign military service was morally 
wrong. 

For several years he had been people's priest in Zurich and had 
preached a series of sermons on the Bible beginning with Matthew. 
He had become convinced that only the Bible was truly binding on 
Christians and he developed this point of view in his popular sermons. 

As a result of this rather independent thinking taught by Zwingli, 
some of the people broke the Lenten fast in 1522 and after they had 
been reprimanded by the bishop of the diocese, Zwingli came to their 
defense. The cantonal government backed him up by ruling that the 
New Testament imposed no fasts. Of course, this meant that the civil 
authorities rejected the bishop's rule. 

Zwingli continued to preach that only that which the Bible sets 
forth is necessary for Christian practices. He also made a radical re- 
vision in the worship of the church by denying the sacrificial char- 
acter of the mass. He denied also such typical Catholic doctrines as 
purgatory, saindy intercession, and clerical celibacy. Under his teach- 
ing in 1524 the civil authorities seized the monastic establishment and 
allowed former priests and nuns to marry. Unfortunately, Zwingli 

19 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

was not as tolerant as the true freedom of the human spirit would 
prompt him to be, and so he and the civil authorities supporting his 
position were often quarreling with cantons holding the Roman Cath- 
olic view, and, in fact, Zwingli himself died on October 11, 1531, in 
a batde between the men of Ziirich and the Roman cantons. Never- 
theless, the Reformed Church resulted from Zwingli's work in Ziirich. 

Zwingli broke with Luther during the years 1524 to 1529 over the 
essential meaning of the Lord's Supper. For Zwingli it was purely a 
memorial meal. He felt that the bread and wine merely signified the 
body and blood of Christ. Luther's conception of Holy Communion 
was much more sacramental. He felt that through an act of faith the 
bread and wine of Holy Communion made possible the real physical 
presence of Christ in the bread and wine. Most Protestants today be- 
lieve in the spiritual presence of Christ in the Sacrament and not in 
the physical presence. 

Another reformation movement began in Ziirich about 1525 under 
the leadership of such men as Manz, Hubmiaer and Grebel. This was 
known as the Anabaptist movement and was, of course, the precursor 
of the Baptist churches of the world. These people taught and prac- 
ticed what was called believer's baptism. They felt that only people 
of responsibile maturity were in a position to receive baptism and so 
many people who were baptized as children were now rebaptized by 
the Anabaptists. These people also taught that the Bible was the sole 
law of the church. They had little use for civil authority and re- 
jected priestly control. The old Catholic conception of the church was 
completely set aside. In their mind the church was now regarded as 
merely groups of local congregations of baptized Christians. These 
Anabaptists were hated by Catholics and Protestants alike because of 
their extreme views on religion and government. As a result, many 
of their leaders were burned, tortured, or drowned by both Protestant 
and Catholic authorities. The old law continued to operate, however, 
that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The Anabap- 
tist movement continued to spread in spite of opposition and moved 
to Germany and The Netherlands, and in this latter place it flourished. 

One of the most interesting reformation movements was that which 
began in Geneva under John Calvin in 1536. He had been active in 

20 



OUR HISTORY 

the French Protestant movement and had published a vigorous de- 
fense of his position in the first edition of the famous Institutes. In 
these Institutes he laid dov/n the well-known doctrine of predestina- 
tion — namely, that God has foreordained certain individuals to salva- 
tion through the work of Christ on Calvary. 

At twenty-seven years of age circumstances led him to visit the 
Protestant leader, Farel, in Geneva. He persuaded Calvin to remain 
and work with him in the establishment of the Geneva Christian 
community. Together they made three important proposals. First, 
they proposed that the Lord's Supper be celebrated on a monthly 
basis and that a quarterly visit be made to the communicants in order 
to ascertain the quality of their Christian behavior. A quarterly report 
would then be made to the ministers and elders concerning the con- 
duct of the communicants and, if the conduct was deemed unworthy, 
the communicants would be excommunicated. The second proposal 
was the adoption of a catechism based upon the theological viewpoint 
of the Institutes, and the third proposal was the imposition of a creed 
upon every citizen of Geneva. In this way Calvin hoped to make 
Geneva a model Christian community. Of course, these proposals are 
a long way from that essential freedom of the human spirit for which 
Luther labored in his own Protestant movement. These proposals 
were adopted with considerable modification by the city council. 

Naturally, many of the inhabitants of Geneva did not care to have 
their religion thus prescribed for them. By 1538 pressure against 
Calvin and Farel had become so great that they were both banished. 
Calvin went to Strasbourg, but by 1541 his friends had returned to 
power and persuaded him to come back to Geneva where he de- 
veloped the consistory. This was an ecclesiastical governing body of 
the city composed of ministers and elders that was charged with 
ecclesiastical discipline and the severe penalty of excommunication if 
necessary. 

Calvin's power and influence now grew, though he had an occa- 
sional stormy movement, particularly when the outstanding advocate 
of anti-Trinitarian opinion, Servetus, came to town to make an attack 
upon the Calvinist position. Servetus was tried in 1553, however, and 
burned to death. After this Calvin's power was consolidated. People 

21 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

from all over the Protestant world came to Geneva. It became the 
center of Reformed Christianity as distinguished from Lutheran 
Christianity. 

Among the persons to come to Geneva was John Knox, a native of 
Scotland who had served for a time as a priest in the English 
church. He was interested in the Protestant movement in Scodand. 
In 1555 he returned to Scodand, but at the end of six months 
had to flee back to Geneva where he worked as a parish min- 
ister among the English-speaking people. By 1559 he was back in 
Scodand where he helped to lead the Scottish revolution against 
France that was successful by 1560. Under the leadership of John 
Knox the Scottish parliament then adopted the Calvinistic confession 
of faith and the Presbyterian system of church government which 
was applied to the whole kingdom. Ministers and elders constituted 
the session or the disciplinary board. This, with the authority of the 
Bible and a simplified form of worship and the Calvinist theology, 
constitutes the heart of Presbyterianism. After stormy years during 
which the Catholic and Presbyterian parties Josded for power, the 
Presbyterian church was finally established as the Christian church in 
Scodand. 

Thus the work of John Calvin spread from central Europe to 
Scodand and later to England and to America. In England the 
Protestant movement was of a more temperate nature at first. It 
began with parliamentary action under Henry VIII against payment 
of revenue to Rome. He wanted to keep his own fingers upon the 
purse strings of England and to prevent undue amounts of money 
from going out of the country. He also quarreled with the pope 
about the annulment of his (Henry VIII's) marriage to Catherine of 
Aragon and did not receive the papal satisfaction that he desired. This 
led to the Supremacy Act of 1534 by which Henry and his successors 
were declared the one supreme head of the church in England. This 
meant, of course, a definite break with the pope at Rome. Penalties for 
those who denied the provisions of the Supremacy Act were severe. In 
1535, for example, some Charterhouse monks were executed, together 
with Bishop John Fisher and Sir Thomas More. Some Protestant inno- 
vations were made at that time in the Articles of Religion and in the 

22 



OUR HISTORY 

worship of the church, but not until Henry VIII died in 1547 were 
more thorough reforms made along Protestant lines. In 1549, The Boo\ 
of Common Prayer, still strongly tinged with Catholicism, however, 
was established as the rule of worship. 

By 1555 the Catholic party was again in power. Severe persecu- 
tions against the Protestants were ordered, including seventy-five 
deaths by fire in that one year. Support and encouragement for the 
Protestant movement was restored with the accession of Elizabeth in 
1558. Shortly after she was crowned queen a new Act of Uniformity 
was established, together with the Anglican episcopate, and the 
Anglican Church (from which the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
America is derived) was put on its feet. 

The Episcopal position, of course, is a compromise between 
Catholism and the Continental Protestant positions. Reform did not 
proceed far enough in the Anglican church to satisfy the more vig- 
orous Protestants in England. They were restless and soon developed 
a movement known as Puritanism. The Puritans wanted to go a step 
farther than the Parliamentary reformers. They wanted to purify 
the Church of England of all of its Catholic emphases. Out of their 
agitation came the rise of English Presbyterianism and other types of 
dissenting churches. 

Interestingly enough, within the Puritan movement itself there 
was still another reform movement. These people did not want to 
wait for a legal and normal process which might at length purify 
The Boo\ of Common Prayer and the Anglican practices. They 
wanted change at once. These people became known as Separatists 
or Congregationalists. Robert Browne was typical of this group of 
people in his teaching that the only church is a local body of Christian 
believers. He felt that every church, from its own membership, could 
select a person to be appointed as minister, and that no local church 
bore administrative relationship to other local congregations, but only 
a relationship of kindred interests and fellowship. These Separatists, 
harassed along the way by the established church, grew modesdy and 
formed the movement which we know today as Congregationalism. 

Not only did the Anglican church give birth to the Puritan and 
Separatist movements; in the eighteenth century it also gave birth to 

23 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

another movement known as Methodism. As everyone knows, the 
father of Methodism was John Wesley, who attempted to keep the 
Methodist movement within the Anglican church. What he set out 
to do was to bring to the established church the renaissance of the 
religious spirit by an emphasis upon experimental religion. He felt 
that religion must be experienced in terms of thinking and feeling 
rather than in terms of formal liturgical and disciplinary action. Only 
after his death did the Methodist movement in England formally 
leave the Anglican church to become a church of its own. There is no 
time to tell the Methodist story in detail here. You will want to re- 
fresh your mind regarding it by reading again The Methodist Primer 
by Bishop Charles C. Selecman. 

Here then is the story of the growth of the Holy Christian Church 
from the time of Jesus to the rise of the Protestant church. Weaving 
in and out of one another to form the symphonic texture of the 
church are these Catholic and Protestant strains, the one with its 
emphasis upon ecclesiastical discipline and solidarity, and the other 
with its emphasis upon the freedom of the human spirit in its fellow- 
ship with God. With different emphases this Protestant spirit has ex- 
pressed itself in the major denominations which arose during the 
Reformation and which were planted in America by the colonists 
who brought with them their native faiths. 



24 



FAITH AND WORSHIP 



Some interpret the Protestant Reformation as a break with the 
corruption and ecclesiastical theories that underly it. It was that. 
Some see in Protestantism a return to the primitive Church, and it 
was that. It was a return to the two sacraments that were estab- 
lished by Jesus, a return to the authority of the Bible, a return to the 
essential spirit of primitive Chrisdanity. 

But it was essentially a spiritual experience that lay at the heart 
of the Reformation. Martin Luther sought what you seek and I 
seek. He wanted inner peace. He wanted to know that his sins were 
forgiven. He wanted to know that there was someone to whom he 
could turn in repentance who would receive him, forgive him, 
save him. . . . 

Luther came to the conclusion that a man is not dependent for his 
salvation upon rites, upon forms, or upon sacraments. He can go to 
his Father, and his Father will receive him. No priest need stand 
between him and his Father. . . . We go to our Father, not upon our 
own merits but upon the merits of Jesus Christ. We find full for- 
giveness there. 

— Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam 



CHAPTER TWO 

OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP 

1. THE PROTESTANT SPIRIT 

A great old American word characterizes the Protestant spirit. It 
is the word Hberty. Protestant Christians are free men who know 
that the human spirit comes to finest expression in an atmosphere of 
freedom, and upon their lips arc always found these words: "We 
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Hap- 
piness." And when the Protestant Christian repeats these words he is 
not double-tongued about the matter. He means liberty to choose his 
own political party, his own books and magazines, his own shading 
of religious opinion, his own form of worship, and his own church 
government. 

This is the chief difference between the Protestant and Catholic 
spirit. The Protestant Christian has the right to rationalize his own 
experience and to think for himself. The Catholic turns his mind 
over to the church and accepts only what it teaches and permits him 
to believe. A distinguished Roman Catholic, Cardinal Mercier, in his 
Lenten Pastoral for 1908, expressed the difference this way: "The 
essential point at issue between Catholicism and Protestantism lies 
there. Catholicism says that the Christian faith is communicated 
by an official organ of transmission — the Catholic Episcopate — 
and that it is based on the acceptance of the authority of that 
organ. Protestantism, on the contrary, says that faith is exclusively 
the faith of individual judgment applied to the interpretation of the 
Holy Scriptures." (The Lenten Pastoral by Cardinal Mercier, quoted 
in Medievalism by George Tyrrell.) 

Two quotations will help to characterize these two different ap- 
proaches to religion. In this same Lenten Pastoral which condcnms a 
scientific study of the Bible, Cardinal Mercier declared, "To resume: 

27 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

each time a Christian, at any moment of his existence, asks himself 
these two important questions: What should I believe?; Why should 
I believe it?, the answer should be: I must believe what is taught me 
by those Catholic bishops who are in agreement with the pope; I 
must believe it because the episcopate united with the pope is the 
organ of transmission of the revealed teachings of Jesus Christ." 

On the other hand, the freedom of the Protestant spirit comes to ex- 
pression in such words as these by Ernest Fremont Tittle: "The reli- 
gion of the spirit leaves you free to follow truth whithersoever it may 
take you. It does not merely lead you back to a God who once spoke. 
It does not leave you tied hand and foot to biblical science and medie- 
val theology. It leads you into the presence of a God who is still speak- 
ing and who may, perchance, have something to say to your generation 
which other generations were unable to hear." {The Religion of the 
Spirit, by E. F. Titde, page 19.) 

This spirit of liberty takes us back through the Protestant centuries 
to the father of the Reformation himself. It was Luther who wrote an 
important religious treatise under the title, "Concerning Christian 
Liberty." It was Luther who, after prayer and study, exercised his 
right of private Judgment and pitted his course against emperors, 
cardinals and pope and all the traditions of his day, and it was Luther 
who wrote to the German nobility about the reforms needed within 
the church, and who said, "My advice is to restore liberty." 

Here then is the fundamental reason why you are a Protestant Chris- 
tian rather than a Catholic Christian. You want to retain your right 
to private judgment. You believe that after prayer and sincere study 
you can think for yourself in religious matters. You want to be part 
of a church that will guide you but not coerce you; that will persuade 
you but not compel you; that will open your mind to truth but will 
not impose it upon you. This difference every Protestant Christian 
ought firmly to fix in his mind. 

Yes, you want to belong to a church that allows liberty, not only in 
the religious judgment of its own membership but also in the re- 
ligious and political practices of other groups, so long as that practice 
is not subversive to the government and national constitution. Indeed 
it was our Protestant American fathers who wrote into the constitution 

28 



OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP 

the first amendment which says, "Congress shall make no law re- 
specting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the 
right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Govern- 
ment for a redress of grievances." In the spirit of this amendment all 
Protestant Christians profoundly believe. They are tolerant of other 
religious cults and political groups. Even though they may beUeve 
that their way is right, they do not seek to impose their way upon 
others. They allow others to think, speak, and worship as they see fit. 

Contrast this spirit with the logical position of the Roman CathoUc 
Church which looks upon other points of view as error and which 
believes that error can never have the same right as truth. In fact, the 
Roman Catholic objective has always been the union of church and 
state, that the Catholic religion should be officially adopted by the state 
and non-Catholic practices barely tolerated if at all. Father John Ryan 
of the Catholic University of America, in his book with M. F. Miller, 
discusses this matter and points out the Catholic view that the state 
should officially recognize the Catholic religion as the religion of the 
country by inviting the blessing and ceremonial participation of the 
church at public functions, by delegating its officials to attend the im- 
portant festival celebrations of the church, by recognizing and up- 
holding the rights of the church and its membership. 

In discussing the Catholic Utopia in his book, Catholicism and the 
American Mind, Winfred Ernest Garrison quotes words from The 
State and the Church which sound strangely intolerant to the Protes- 
tant mind: "Does state recognition of the Catholic religion necessarily 
imply that no other religion should be tolerated? . . . Should such 
persons be permitted to practice their own forms of worship? If these 
are carried on within the family or in such an inconspicuous manner 
as to be an occasion of neither scandal nor perversion to the faithful, 
they may be properly tolerated by the state. . . . Quite distinct 
from the performance of false religious worship and preaching to the 
erring sect, is the propagation of the false doctrine among Catholics. 
This could become a source of injury and a positive menace to the re- 
ligious welfare of true believers. Against such an evil they have the 
right of protection by the Catholic state." Again Garrison quotes from 

29 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

this book, "Error has not the same rights as truth." {Catholicism and 
the American Mind, pp. 112 fl.) 

In his book, The Catholic Church and the Citizen, Father Ryan 
seems to mitigate this harsh opinion. He says, "Even if the Church 
were to require her subjects to strive by constitutional means for the 
union of Church and state, compliance would not bring them into 
direct conflict with any organic statute law of the land. 

"Of course, the Church is not going to do anything of the sort. 
The American Hierarchy is not only well satisfied with the kind of 
separation which exists in this country, but would oppose any sugges- 
tion of union between the two powers. No pope has expressed the 
wish for a change in the present relation between the Church and 
state in America, nor is any pope likely to do so within any period of 
time that is of practical interest to this generation. The fundamental 
reason lies in the fact that a formal union is desirable and could be 
effective only in Catholic states." (Page 31.) Of course, a good and 
tolerant Protestant is likely to scratch his head over those words of 
Father Ryan's, "within any period of time that is of practical in- 
terest to this generation." 

Here is something, then, which every Protestant ought to know 
when asked about the chief differences between Protestant Chris- 
tianity and the Catholic position. He should not think of such things 
as going to confession or votive lights in the sanctuary, or the celi- 
bate priesthood, or the presence of nuns in the church, or other 
outward practices which characterize CathoUcism, but rather of that 
basic right of the Protestant which a Catholic does not possess — 
namely, the right to exercise his private judgment. Tolerance, liberty, 
freedom — these are the great words of Protestant Christianity. 

2. PROTESTANT BELIEFS 

As Protestants we share a common heritage with all Christendom. 
We must never forget that Protestantism arose as a reformation move- 
ment within the Catholic church. That means that we are a part of a 
centuries-old tradition. That means we have many things in common, 
including not only various forms of worship but also certain great 
beliefs. Those matters of faith that we do have in common with Cath- 

30 



OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP 

olie Christianity arc perhaps best summarized in the two historic 
creeds, the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. Both of these are 
foimd in the various books of worship within Protestantism, including 
the Prayer Boo\ of the Episcopal Church and the Methodist Boo\ •/ 
Worship, and are generally acceptable to the various Protestant de- 
nominations. Here is what we do have in common: 

1. GOD All of Christendom believes in God and thinks of 
him as a supreme Father and Creator of the universe. The creeds 
phrase it this way, and in these quotations about God we will quote 
as (a) The Aposdes' Creed, and as (b) The Nicene Creed. We will 
follow this device for all of the great items of belief that we are now 
going to discuss. 

(a) "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and 
earth"; 

(b) "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven 
and earth, and of all things visible and invisible": 

2. CHRIST In one way or another all Christendom believes 
in our Lord Jesus Christ, who was the incarnation of God in history, 
and who through his sacrificial death upon the cross made possible 
the whole Christian pattern which makes for salvation. 

(a) "And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was con- 
ceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered 
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; the 
third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and 
sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from 
thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." 

(b) "And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, 
begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of 
Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one 
substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; 
who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from 
heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin 
Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under 
Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried, and the third day 

31 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into 
heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he 
shall come again with glory, to judge both the quick and the 
dead, whose kingdom shall have no end." 

3. HOLY SPIRIT Christendom thinks of the Holy Spirit as 
the third member of the Trinity and as the presence of God in his 
worid. This is an important doctrine and one not always understood. 
Many books have been written about this but the Protestant Christian 
can think of this doctrine on this simple basis, namely: the Holy 
Spirit is the creative God present and at work in the affairs of men 
and within the individual conscience. 

(a) "I beUeve in the Holy Spirit," 

(b) "And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, 
who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the 
Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, 
who spake by the prophets." 

4. THE CHURCH All of Christendom, in one way or another, 
believes in the Holy Universal Church which is the meaning of the 
word "catholic" as used in the historic creeds. Christendom thinks of 
the church as the company of the faithful, living and dead, though 
alive in Christ, who form the body of Christ. 

(a) "I believe in . . . the holy catholic Church, the communion of 
saints," 

(b) "And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church." 

5. FORGIVENESS OF SINS This doctrine is fundamental to 
all of Christendom, because it is the heart of the whole matter of 
salvation. When all is said and done, perhaps the fundamental reason 
why a person seeks to unite his life with that of God and become a 
Christian is to save his soul for eternal life with God. People have 
always felt that man's sin blocks the channels through which God's 
everlasting life might flow, thus causing one either to be eternally 
punished or forever to be annihilated. Christendom has believed that 
the sacrificial work of Christ made possible forgiveness of the sins 

32 



OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP 

of the penitent Christian and thus made salvation possible. Therefore, 
the creeds declare: 

(a) "I believe in . . . the forgiveness of sins." 

(b) "I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins." 

6. THE LIFE EVERLASTING Here again is the heart of the 
Christian faith and the great goal of the Christian life. We long to 
live forever with God and the company of his faithful people, and 
we believe that through Christ this is possible and, therefore, we 
believe in the life everlasting. This great and comforting doctrine 
forms the climax of the creeds. 

(a) "I beheve in . . • the resurrection of the body, and the life 
everlasting." 

(b) "And I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of 
the world to come." 

3. BELIEFS DISTINCTIVE WITH PROTESTANT 
CHRISTIANITY 

1. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH A great and distinctive re- 
ligious belief of the Protestant Church is justification by faith. The 
belief itself is less formidable than the legalistic language in which it 
has been historically clothed. Indeed, it is a most wonderful and com- 
forting faith. We believe that salvation is a gift made possible by Jesus 
Christ and appropriated by faith. We can never earn salvation or 
even to come to the point where we feel that we deserve it because of 
the many good works which we have accrued to our credit. We can 
only receive the loving forgiveness of God and the salvation which he 
offers to us as a result of all that Christ did for mankind. The Meth- 
odist Church states it this way in its ninth Article of Religion: "We 
are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord 
and Savior Jesus Christ, by faith and not for our own works or de- 
servings. Wherefore, that we arc justified by faith only is a most 
wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort." 

You will be interested to hear the contemporary phrasing of this 
doctrine in the statement published by the Edinburgh Conference on 
Faith and Order in 1937: "God in his free out-going love justifies and 

33 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

sanctifies us through Christ, and his grace thus manifested is appro- 
priated by faith, which itself is the gift of God. Justification and 
sanctification are two inseparable aspects of God's gracious action in 
dealing with sinful men. Justification is the act of God, whereby he 
forgives our sins and brings us into fellowship with himself, who in 
Jesus Christ, and by his death upon the cross, has condenmed sin 
and manifested his love to sinners, reconciling the world to himself. 
. . • Faith is more than intellectual acceptance of the revelation in 
Jesus Christ; it is wholehearted trust in God and his promise, and 
committal of ourselves to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord." Protestant 
Christians know what this means because they know the story of the 
prodigal son as told by Jesus. Here is the simplest possible statement 
and story of the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith. The 
prodigal son certainly did not earn the right to be forgiven by his 
father and to be received back into the household of the faithful 
family. There was nothing in his life to warrant such a gracious and 
unexpected honor. Yet the prodigal son believed in the loving kind- 
ness of his father and made an act of faith. He left the folly of his 
ways and returned to the father, confessed his sins, sought his 
father's forgiveness and was taken back into the household by the 
father. Now we would not expect the prodigal son to live a life of 
indolence after his salvation. We would expect him to contribute his 
effort to the ongoing life of the household and by his good works of 
labor and of love to support the father. So with the Christian. Good 
works do not precede salvation; they follow it and accompany it. It is 
the man who has made his act of faith who performs the good works 
of worship and personal service which characterize the Christian life. 
This distinctive belief goes back to Martin Luther who had to 
teach it vigorously in order to change the thinking of the German 
church. At that time the Catholic Church, as indeed it does today, 
emphasized the importance of works in the matter of salvation. In a 
sense, you earned your salvation by the various works of worship 
services and gifts of money which might characterize your life. 
Luther knew that the New Testament did not teach this and so he 
brought the thinking of the church again to that pure word of God 
which teaches justification by faith. A quotation from his treatise on 

34 



OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP 

Christian Liberty will show the way in which Luther set forth this 
belief: 

"Now when a man has through the precepts been taught his own 
impotence, and becomes anxious by what means he may satisfy the 
law — for the law must be satisfied, so that no jot or titdc of it may 
pass away, otherwise he must be hopelessly condemned — then, being 
truly humbled and brought to nothing in his own eyes, he finds in 
himself no resource for justification and salvation. Then comes in 
that other part of Scripture, the promises of God. which declare the 
glory of God, and say, *If you wish to fulfill the law, and, as the law 
requires, not to covet, lo! believe in Christ, in whom are promised 
to you, grace, justification, peace, and liberty.' All these things you 
shall have, if you believe, and shall be without them if you do not 
believe. For what is impossible for you by all the works of the law, 
which are many and yet useless, you shall fulfill in an easy and sum- 
mary way through faith, because God the Father has made every- 
thing depend on faith, so that whosoever has it has all things, and 
he who has it not has nothing." 

Luther felt that this doctrine ought to be made very personal. 
"Now preaching ought to have the object of promoting faith in Him, 
so that He may not only be Christ but the Christ for you and for 
me, and that what is said of Him and what He is called, may work 
in us." 

By the light of this doctrine John Wesley felt his heart strangely 
warmed. You will remember that moment so precious to every 
Methodist in the life of John Wesley when, on the evening of May 
24 back in 1738, Wesley, who had been troubled about his religious 
condition, went to a prayer meeting in Aldersgate Street where the 
leader was reading Luther's Preface to the Episde to the Romans, in 
which Luther discussed this matter of justification by faith. This most 
wonderful happening occurred. "About a quarter before nine, while 
he was describing the change which God works in the heart through 
faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in 
Christ, Christ alone for my salvation; and an assurance was given me 
that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the 
law of sin and death." 

35 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

2. THE SCRIPTURES Generally speaking, Protestant Chris- 
tianity looks upon the Bible as containing all things necessary for 
salvation. Since every Protestant Christian is enabled to exercise the 
right of private judgment regarding these Scriptures, no canonical 
law or teaching of church tradition is necessary for their interpreta- 
tion. Particularly important are the Gospels with their record of the 
life and teaching of Jesus who was the Word of God as it appeared 
in history. Any confession of faith or group of articles of religion 
published by the various churches will reffect this point of view in one 
way or another. The fifth article of Methodism reflects it in these 
opening words, "The Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to 
salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved 
thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed 
as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salva- 
tion." 

3. THE CHURCH From the Protestant point of view the 
church is a company of faithful people who are pledged to main- 
tain the way of life set forth in the New Testament through the 
work and teaching of Jesus. The church is not a hierarchy of ec- 
clesiastical officials, nor yet is it dependent upon them. There is much 
more emphasis upon the individual's relation to God in Protestantism 
as a member of the worshiping fellowship, than there is in the 
Catholic position, and consequendy there is much less emphasis 
upon the dependence of the individual upon the institutional life of 
the church. The article of religion in the Anglican and Methodist 
churches concerning the church reads as follows: "The visible church 
of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word 
of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according 
to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requi- 
site to the same." 

Interesting also are the statements of faith concerning the church 
as set forth by the Edinburgh Conference of 1937. To be sure, some 
of the Eastern Orthodox Catholic churches participated in this con- 
ference. Nevertheless, the point of view set forth was generally 
acceptable to the Protestant representatives at that great world con- 
ference. In the articles setting forth the doctrine concerning the church 

36 



OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP 

we find more detail regarding its nature and function than is often 
expressed, details which more and more we are coming to appre- 
ciate. Here, for example, is the fourth article of Chapter II: "We 
agree that the church is the Body of Christ and the blessed company 
of all faithful people, whether in heaven or on earth, the communion 
of saints. It is at once the realization of God's gracious purposes in 
creation and redemption, and the continuous organ of God's grace in 
Christ by the Holy Spirit, who is its pervading life, and who is con- 
stantly hallowing all its parts. 

"It is the function of the church to glorify God in its life and wor- 
ship, to proclaim the gospel to every creature, and to build up in the 
fellowship and life of the Spirit all believing people, of every race and 
nation. To this end God bestows his grace in the church on its 
members through his Word and sacraments, and in the abiding 
presence of the Holy Spirit." 

4. THE SACRAMENTS The Protestant Christian churches 
generally recognize but two sacraments in contrast to the seven recog- 
nized by Rome. Confirmation, penance, orders, matrimony, and 
extreme unction are thought of as religious rites rather than as sacra- 
ments. This term is reserved within Protestantism for Holy Baptism 
and Holy Communion. 

These two sacraments are conceived diflerendy in the minds of the 
different Protestant churches. For some, baptism is scarcely a sacra- 
ment and not at all necessary for salvation. In others, baptism is a full 
sacrament, the first step into church membership and a religious act 
basic to the salvation of the soul. 

There is often great diversity of opinion regarding the sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper, commonly known as Holy Communion. In 
the Roman liturgy Holy Communion, commonly called the mass, is 
a service recapitulating the sacrifice of Christ, during which time, 
through the miracle of transubstantiation, the substance of the bread 
and wine is actually changed into the body and blood of Christ. 

This point of view is not held in Protestantism. For some of our 
churches, such as the Lutheran, Episcopal and Methodist, Christ's 
presence is very real and the worshiper identifies himself with it 
through taking the bread and wine. In other words, there is a true 

37 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

Holy Communion. The eighteenth article of Methodism puts it this 
way: ". . • insomuch that, to such as rightly, worthily, and with 
faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of 
the body of Christ; and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking 
of the blood of Christ. . . . The body of Christ is given, taken, and 
eaten in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And 
the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the 
Supper is faith." For other denominations the Supper is largely a 
memorial meal rather than Holy Communion. The bread and wine 
merely signify or symbolize the body of Christ and the whole service 
is thought of as a recapitulation of that distant evening when Jesus 
gathered around the Passover Table to eat his final supper with his 
beloved. 

Who shall ever say the final word, however, about the meaning of 
this strange and beautiful and mystical service? Exercising the right 
of private judgment, Protestants at different times and different places 
will find a variety of values and meaning in the service. For some the 
service will mean a memorial; for others an adoration; for others in- 
struction; for others confession and a sense of forgiveness; for others 
a thanksgiving; for others a Holy Communion and, for the more 
fortunate few perhaps, all of these values in their entirety. Never, 
however, will the Protestant mind believe in the magic of transub- 
stantiation or in the repeated sacrifice or oblation of Christ upon the 
altar of communion. 

4. THE EDINBURGH CONFESSION 

One of the great statements of faith in our own day is that made in 
1937 at the great world conference in Edinburgh. Gathered together 
were 414 delegates representing 122 Christian communions in 43 
different countries. To be sure, some of these representatives were 
Eastern Orthodox churchmen. Nevertheless, most of them were 
Protestant Christians. These statements of theological beliefs repre- 
sented, therefore, the collective mind of the Protestant churches of 
the world. Every good Protestant, sooner or later, will want to go 
through this Edinburgh Confession to see what it has to say concern- 
ing the belief of the church. One of the striking things about it is to 

38 



OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP 

note the emphasis upon the fellowship of the church. Perhaps this 
was the result of a feeling of togetherness on the part of these Chris- 
tians in the fourth decade of the twentieth century, who lived in a 
perilous time and who came to understand the glory of belonging to 
a caring fellowship, so different from the rest of the social order. 
Again and again the idea of the church is set forth as that of a fel- 
lowship with God and with Christ and with the company of the 
faithful. At any rate, here is a great ecumenical statement of faith, one 
which will be referred to repeatedly in the future and one which 
represents some of the best thinking in the area of religious beliefs 
in the Protestant church today. 

5. OUR WORSHIP 

An important difference marks the worship of the Protestant and 
Catholic churches. Though the central service of Protestant Chris- 
tianity is Holy Communion, it is not a regular and normal service. 
In most Protestant churches Holy Communion is not celebrated once 
every Sunday but rather once a month or once a quarter, or at longer 
intervals of one kind or another. There are exceptions, of course. The 
Disciples denomination, for example, celebrates Holy Communion 
every Sunday, and so do many churches of the Episcopal communion. 
Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists and Lutherans are in- 
clined to celebrate it once a month, or once a quarter. 

The Roman Catholic Church, however, celebrates Holy Com- 
munion not only every Sunday but also every day of the year except 
Good Friday, and often several times on Simday. 

There is an important difference, too, in the manner in which 
Holy Communion is celebrated. Around the miracle of transubstantia- 
tion is developed an elaborate liturgy and ceremonial. A solemn high 
mass is a dramatic occasion with its liturgical pageantry of light and 
color and gorgeous vestments, elaborate and precise ritual and often 
beautiful music. All of this is done in order to honor the presence 
of Christ and to make possible his repeated oblation upon the altar 
for the sins of the world. 

Since the Protestant Christian conception of Holy Conmiunion is 
less involved, the celebration of the service is also simpler. In the 

39 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

Congregational Church it may be very simple and may be thought of 
only as a memorial supper. In other churches, where several aspects 
of the service are emphasized, including the spiritual presence of 
Christ, the liturgy and ceremonial may be more elaborate. There may 
be a choral setting to it. Probably the most elaborate celebration of 
Communion occurs in the Protestant Episcopal Church where color, 
light, vestments and other appointments and practices are used, 
which come very near to those used by Rome. For the Protestant, 
however, there is no thought that the sacrifice of Calvary will be re- 
enacted again, but rather by means of this service the presence of 
Christ will become very real to the people. 

The normal service in the Protestant church is known as Morning 
Prayer. This service goes back to the old tradition of the synagogue 
where the congregation assembled for the reading of the Scriptures, 
for its interpretation and for prayers to God. This tradition was pre- 
served in the Roman church in what was called the Daily Ofi&ce. In 
addition to the daily celebration of the mass, the religious orders and 
secular priests recited prayers and read Scripture at various times 
during the day. The services were compiled in the breviary. 

Protestant reformers took these daily ofi&ces, simplified them, com- 
bined them, and adapted them to the regular Sunday services. The 
Sunday liturgy of the Lutheran Church and morning prayer in the 
Episcopal Church are typical examples. 

This service makes possible what Lutherans describe as the sacra- 
ment of the Word. Since the Bible is the final and sole authority 
necessary for man's salvation, it is important that the Bible be heard, 
understood and interpreted. That is the purpose of the morning 
prayer. Therefore, when you come to church on Sunday you are 
given an opportunity to sing your praise to God, to listen to his word 
through the reading of the Scriptures, to contemplate its interpreta- 
tion in the sermon and to offer your prayers of praise, confession, 
penitence, and intercession and dedication to Almighty God. In this 
way the word of God impinges upon your own life and becomes real 
to you as a compelling force in all that you think and do. 

As part of the worship of Protestants, our churches encourage their 
people to read the Bible in private, to meditate upon its message for 

40 



OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP 

them and to offer up in private their own prayers to God. Encour- 
agement is also given to family worship so that families may ex- 
perience the sense of guidance, direction, and fellowship which 
come when as a group they read the Bible and offer prayers to God. 

One of the important features of the Protestant approach to worship 
is that of freedom. To be sure, we have printed services and prayers 
such as the Communion Uturgy. We are always at liberty, however, in 
our morning service to relate the liturgy to contemporary interests and 
forms of expression. If an immediate current problem has some rela- 
tion to religion that problem may be lifted up to God in the service 
through prayer, through the sermon, and often through music. Fur- 
thermore, this may be done in the language and thought forms of 
today. We do not expect to hear merely sixteenth century English 
when we come to church on Sunday morning. We expect also to 
hear the idiom of the twentieth century as the life of experience of 
today is crystallized into the liturgy and art forms of today. For the 
Protestant there is both form and freedom in worship. 

6. OUR MEMBERSHIP 

For Catholics and Protestants alike, confirmation is the usual term 
given to the process whereby one becomes a member of the church. 
Some churches do not use the term but speak of uniting with the 
church or joining the church. Confirmation is an old historic and 
more generally accepted term, however. In most Protestant churches 
the steps to confirmation are quite similar. First there is the sacra- 
ment of Holy Baptism. This is the first step into the church and for 
many it occurs during infancy, though some churches as the Baptist 
believe that this step should not be taken until adolescence has been 
reached. 

When a child reaches the approximate age of twelve he attends a 
training class, often spoken of as the pastor's class or the confirmation 
class. As part of this training he learns the meaning and natiu-e of the 
Christian life, the nature of the church with which he is going to 
unite, something of its history, government, worship, and beliefs. He 
then learns the meaning of the important step of uniting with the 
church which soon he will take. 

41 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

At last the great day arrives. In some churches, such as the Lutheran 
and Episcopal, it is a day of family celebration, new clothes, gifts, 
and photographs. Much is made of it, for it is really one of the most 
important days in a person's life, the day when finally and fully he 
dedicates himself to God through Christ and becomes a member of 
the living church. Many of our other churches, such as the Methodist, 
Presbyterian, and Congregational, are emphasizing more and more 
the importance of this great day. 

When the candidates for confirmation arrive at the chancel, the 
minister reads the service and asks them to take the confirmation 
vows which are often of a threefold nature: a pledge of loyalty to 
Christ, the acceptance of the Christian faith as contained in the New 
Testament, and a pledge of loyalty to the church. The Methodist 
vows are typical. "Do you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior and 
Lord, and do you pledge your allegiance to his kingdom? Do you 
profess the Christian faith as contained in the New Testament of our 
Lord Jesus Christ? Will you be loyal to The Methodist Church and 
support it by your prayers, your presence, your gifts and your service?" 
Sometimes the candidates are asked to kneel and the minister places 
his hands upon their heads, or as in the case of the Episcopal Church, 
the bishop, and a prayer is uttered which asks God to confirm them 
into the fellowship of those who believe in Christ. Then they rise 
and the right hand of welcome and fellowship is extended to them 
by the minister and by the official members of the church. 

More and more Protestant Christians are coming to understand 
the responsibility which is theirs in regard to church membership. 
They are coming to see that there is no such thing as an inactive 
Christian, that a church membership in a dresser drawer is no church 
membership at all, that the only church membership is that which is 
alive and active in a local congregation. Just as an individual cell in a 
body keeps alive and receives the life of the whole body through its 
active participation in all of the life processes of the body, so the 
individual Christian receives the life of God through Jesus Christ our 
Lord and through his individual receiving and giving relationship 
within the local church. This is the fulfillment of the confirmation 
vows in spirit and in reality. 

42 



CHURCH GOVERNMENT 



The Protestant instruments of religious expression, the denomina- 
tions, have been less influential in recent years than they could 
have been, because of this same neglect to understand their function, 
appreciate their contribution, and recognize their distinctive values 
in a religious economy which guarantees and encourages individual 
freedom of thought and allegiance. 

To assume that all Protestant denominations are about alike and, 
therefore, have no justification for their separate existence except 
the momentum of custom, closes many doors of needed services 
which the denominations as such can render to people who exercise 
choices based upon their tastes, convictions, needs and personalities 
in all other fields of their lives. 

— The Pattern of a Church, Corson 



CHAPTER THREE 

OUR CHURCH GOVERNMENT 

1. BACKGROUND 

Obviously, some form of government is necessary if the church is 
to function as an effective and social institution. Without organization 
and legislation the church would be at the mercy of individual whims. 
Christians would have no sense of belonging to a great company of 
people with a purpose and a tradition and illimitable strength, sup- 
porting them in their every Christian effort. 

You will remember from the brief survey of church history made 
in Chapter One that very early the Christian community organized 
for action. At first it grouped itself around the communal plan. Peo- 
ple brought their possessions to a common treasury and the aposdes 
administered both the food for the soul and the food for the body. 
According to Acts VI, the temporal affairs of the Christian commu- 
nity began to occupy too much of the Aposdes' time and presendy 
they elected seven brethren who were set aside to function as stew- 
ards for the community. This was done by prayer and the laying on 
of hands. This action freed the aposdes for a purely spiritual ministry. 

As the Christian church moved out of this communal plan because 
of its rapid growth, other ofl&ces and functions began to appear. Paul 
listed some of these in his letter to the Corinthian church. Active in 
the Christian community were first of all the aposdes, then prophets, 
teachers, workers of miracles, healers, helpers, administrators, and 
speakers in various tongues. All of these people made up the complex 
of the early Christian church. 

By the time of Ignatius of Antioch (110 to 117 a.d.), the three- 
fold ministry, with which we are now familiar, had developed. There 
were bishops, presbyters, and deacons. In one of his letters Ignatius 
wrote, "Do ye all follow your bishop as Jesus Christ followed the 
Father, and the presbytery as the aposdes, and to the deacons pay 
respect?" The bishop was the head ecclesiastic in the governed com- 

45 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

munity. Sometimes he was the head of the church, but if the city 
was large he was the head of all the churches in the city. His govern- 
ment was monarchial. Since there was no superior form of organiza- 
tion beyond the local bishop, he was responsible to no one but the 
churches which he served. The presbytery was in charge of a par- 
ticular church. Sometimes there was a group of presbyters if the size 
of the church warranted such a development of the ministry. Then 
there were deacons to help the presbyters and bishops in the adminis- 
tration of the temporal affairs of the church. These divisions in the 
ministry continued through history and in one form or another ap- 
peared again and again. 

2. CATHOLIC ORGANIZATION 

Many changes occurred through the centiu*ies to make possible 
at last that closely knit church organization which we know as the 
Roman Catholic Church. This world-wide church has one man at 
the head. Though he is elected by the cardinals of the church he is 
commissioned by Christ and is a successor to St. Peter whom the 
Roman Catholic Church looks upon as its first bishop. In a sense, 
the pope is the general manager of the whole Roman Catholic 
Church. He has the last word, is finally responsible to no one but 
Christ, and is the supreme expression of monarchy in church adminis- 
tration. 

For one thing, he is the spiritual head of the church. What he says 
concerning faith and morals must be accepted by clergy and laity 
throughout the Catholic world. Indeed, this belief concerning the 
ability of the pope to speak with spiritual authority was given doc- 
trinal expression in 1870 at the Vatican Council where the infallibility 
of the pope was declared. You may be interested in a particular para- 
graph by which this decree is declared: 

"Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the 
beginning of the Christian faith, for the glory of God our Savior, the 
exaltation of the Catholic religion, and the salvation of Christian peo- 
ple, the Sacred Council approving, we teach and define that it is a 
dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex 
cathedra — ^that is, when, in the discharge of pastor and teacher of all 

46 



OUR CHURCH CX)VERNMENT 

Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a 
doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Universal 
Church — is, by the divine assistance promised to him in Blessed 
Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer 
willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine 
regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the 
Roman PontifE are irreformable of themselves, and not from the con- 
sent of the Church." (Quoted by W. E. Garrison in Catholicism and 
the American Mind, page 53,) 

The pope is also temporal head of the church and earthly king. He 
is quite literally the ruler of the temporal estate known as the 
Vatican City. Though this realm is indeed very small, it is governed 
both to symbolize and make real the temporal authority of the pope. 
He rules Vatican City. He also rules the whole church and every 
good Catholic is bound to be loyal to the pope, for he is their 
sovereign. 

Assisting him are the bishops. The whole church is divided up into 
administrative areas, each one of which is called a diocese. At the 
head of every diocese is a bishop. Each bishop is sort of a general 
superintendent of a particular administrative area. Under his juris- 
diction are the various parish churches and their clergy. The bishop's 
own church is called the cathedral, because that is where his cathedra 
or throne is placed. From the cathedral he rules the churches, the 
schools and the institutions of his diocese. 

Groups of dioceses are combined into larger administrative areas 
at the head of which is an archbishop. The archbishops of the country 
constitute the leading clergy and are the real rulers of the Roman 
Catholic Church in the governed country. Sometimes priests, bishops 
and archbishops are elected to the College of Cardinals, a distinctive 
honor which makes them princes of the church and the participating 
members who vote for the next pope. There are not many cardinals 
in the world. We have only a few of them in the United States. 

In addition to the so-called secular clergy, who are in charge of 
most of the parish churches of the Catholic world, there are great 
religious orders made up of laity and clergy alike, such as the 
Franciscan, Dominican, Jesuit, and others. These great orders have 

47 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

their own superior administxative oflficers, though their respective 
institutions are responsible to the bishop of the governed diocese. 
These orders operate great universities, academies, hospitals, mission 
stations and monasteries and convents of various kinds. 

This is the familiar plan of organization which ties up clergy and 
laity all over the world into a very wonderful form of institutional 
life, all of which is unified under the activities of Vatican City and 
finally under the pope himself. 

3. THE PROTESTANT PLAN 
Generally speaking, there are three forms of Protestant organiza- 
tion: the episcopal, the presbyterian, and the congregational. Some 
examples of the episcopal form of government are The Methodist 
Church, the Evangehcal-United Brethren and the Protestant Episcopal 
Church. Examples of the presbyterian form are the various Presby- 
terian Churches of the world and the Lutheran Churches. Examples 
of the congregational form of government arc the Baptist Churches, 
the Disciples of Christ, the Congregational and Christian Churches, 
and the numerous independent churches of the tabernacle movement. 
Let us look at each form. 

L EPISCOPAL Take The Mediodist Church as an example. 
It is a complicated organizational form of pattern which makes for 
effective and eflScient government and administration. In the United 
States it is a combination of republicanism and episcopacy. The laity 
and clerical church membership is represented in the great church 
councils and in the election of the bishops. The bishops, however, are 
in charge of the administration of the church. 

Start with the top. The superior governing body of The Methodist 
Church is called the General Conference. It meets once every four 
years and is composed of an equal number of lay and clerical repre- 
sentatives from the various geographical units called Annual Confer- 
ences. The General Conference determines the policy of Methodism, 
inaugurates its great world-wide educational programs and enacts 
legislation necessary to operate The Methodist Church. Its actions 
arc written up in a book called The Discipline, which is the code of 
laws of Methodism. 

48 



OUR CHURCH GOVERNMENT 

Directly following General Conference, the Jurisdictional Confer- 
ences meet, primarily for the election of bishops. There are six juris- 
dictions within Methodism, five of them arc geographical and one 
of them colored. To date, Methodism has not developed very much 
of a self-conscious jurisdictional program. There is an inclination to 
take poUcies set forth in the General Conference and deal with them 
inamediately in the Annual Conference. 

Annual Conferences are arranged on a geographical basis; often a 
state or half a state will comprise an Annual Conference. All Confer- 
ences meet annually and are composed of one lay and one clerical 
delegate from each church or circuit of churches called a quarterly 
conference. The Annual Conference is presided over by the bishop. 
He directs all affairs and appoints its clergy to their respective sta- 
tions. Assisting him in each Conference is a group of district super- 
intendents, for every Conference is divided into a group of geographic 
districts. These men help to motivate the policy established by the 
General and Annual Conferences. Within each district are, of course, 
the local churches and circuits of churches. Several times a year the 
district superintendent presides over a meeting of the Official Board 
in these churches. When he comes the Official Board meeting is called 
a Quarterly Conference. In this way the connection of the local 
church and its minister with the bishop is maintained. 

Annual Conferences are grouped together in larger administrative 
units called Areas. At the head of every Area is a bishop. Often the 
Area becomes self-conscious. There is an Area Coimcil which deter- 
mines the policy in the Annual Conferences of the Area. This Area 
Council, made up of the district superintendents of the Annual Con- 
ferences within it, and the important committee chairmen who take 
care of the detailed organization work of the Annual Conferences, 
carry out the will and policy of the bishop. 

Contributing to the life of the whole church is the activity of its 
various boards which are established and planned by the General 
Conference. In this way, the great educational, evangelistic, missionary 
and pension programs of Methodism are developed. 

There are two orders and three forms of ministry within Meth- 
odism. The first step into the ministry is the diaconate. A deacon 

49 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

may be placed at the head of a church, celebrate the sacraments and 
fulfill all of the functions of the Methodist minister. Nevertheless, 
he is not fully ordained until he takes the second step into the elder- 
ship. An elder is a fully ordained Methodist minister. This order 
corresponds to the presbyter in the Presbyterian Church and a priest 
in the Episcopal Church. The third form of ministry in Methodism 
is, of course, the episcopacy. This is not a special order, however, for 
the bishop is consecrated to his office and not ordained. In other 
words, the episcopacy in Methodism does not add spiritual power to 
the individual but rather temporal authority. Because of this the 
bishops of Methodism, though exercising great authority, have also 
maintained a democratic relationship with clergy and people. 

2. PRESBYTERIAN Take the Presbyterian Church itself as an 
example. It occupies an intermediate position between the episcopal 
and congregational forms. There is only one spiritual order in the 
Presbyterian Church — ^namely, the presbyters. These are the ministers 
who preach and celebrate the sacraments. The ruling elders are 
associated with the minister in the oversight of the people. Presby- 
terianism also has a diaconate but with no spiritual duties. Their 
deacons take care of some of the temporal administration of the local 
church. 

In the Presbyterian Church the membership itself elects the min- 
ister and other office bearers, in contrast to the appointment system of 
the episcopacy. Their action, however, must be sustained by the pres- 
bytery, which body then proceeds with ordination and induction. The 
elders, on the other hand, are ordained and inducted into office by 
the session of the local church. 

The session is composed of the ministers and elders of the parish 
church. A minister called a moderator is the presiding officer. He is 
able to exercise considerable leadership and cannot be deprived of his 
office by the congregation without the consent of the presbytery. The 
presbytery is composed of all the ministers and a selection of ruling 
elders from the congregations within a given area. These representa- 
tives of the various parish churches choose their own presiding officer 
as moderator. This group has general oversight of the churches within 

50 



OUR CHURCH GOVERNMENT 

its bounds, ordains and maintains the ministers and really functions 
like the episcopacy. 

The next higher group in Presbyterianism is called the synod. This 
organization of ministers and elders may be from all the churches 
within a group of presbyteries. Often the synod is organized on a 
state-wide basis. It does not have many administrative duties in com- 
parison to the presbytery but functions as an intermediate agency 
between the presbytery itself and the highest of all Presbyterian 
groups, which is called the General Assembly. This body, which 
enacts the laws of the Presbyterian Church, meets once a year. 

3. THE CONGREGATIONAL Take the Congregational 
Church as an example. The feature of Congregationalism is autonomy 
or independence of each local church. For all practical purposes it 
does as it pleases. It elects and calls its own minister and discharges 
him at will. It supports whatever benevolent and charitable enter- 
prises it desires. It has no compulsory apportionments as is true, for 
example, of Methodism. 

The local church, however, has some sense of congregational 
Christian fellowship because it belongs to a group of churches called 
the Association, made up of the ministers and representative laymen 
from the various churches. The function of the Association is purely 
advisory, however, though it has a committee on ministerial creden- 
tials. The opinion of this committee is respected by the local con- 
gregations, though its opinion is in no wise binding upon the con- 
gregation if its wishes to act independendy in regard to its pastoral 
relationship. 

The Associations are bound together in what is called a State Con- 
ference. Again the function of this conference is purely advisory. It 
employs a state superintendent to supervise in a general way the life 
and work of the congregational churches of the state, but he has no 
authority. Nevertheless, his ofEce carries considerable social pressure 
with it, and congregations are often amenable to the reasonable 
opinion of their state superintendent. Representatives from the state 
conference make up the national organization which meets every two 
years and in a general way sets the policy, point of view, missionary, 

51 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

educational, and social programs of die Congregational churches. It 
employs an executive secretary who functions as the spokesman and 
correlating agent of Congregationalism in the country. Hie strength 
of this form of church government is, of course, its fundamental 
democracy. Its weakness is often in the loss of efficiency resulting 
from complete congregational independence. 

4. NATURE AND STRENGTH OF THE CHURCHES 
According to its own tradition, each general Protestant Christian 
Church preserves the Reformation tradition in its spirit, government, 
and theology. Various differences characterize each church such as 
size, government, worship, and temperamental emphasis. Though 
interesting, these differences are not too important. They are largely 
the result of the two factors of accident and temperament. After all, 
it was accidental that Lutheranism should be born in Germany, the 
Reformed and Presbyterian movements in Switzerland, the Anglican 
in England, and so on. Accidental, also, was the fact that colonists 
coming from these various places in Europe should bring their re- 
spective religious emphases with them and thus establish here in the 
United States the amazing variety of Protestant expression that we 
have. Sometimes this variety is an embarrassment to Protestant Chris- 
tians, but it need not be if we remember that it is the result of acci- 
dent and not stupid and deliberate planning. Accidental, also, is the 
birth of the average Protestant Christian into one of these great 
churches which he does not often leave. 

The second factor is temperament. Frequendy these various de- 
nominations correspond to temperamental differences in people. When 
Protestants do change their denominational afiSliation, they are likely 
to seek the church which complements them temperamentally. Ex- 
treme individualists are likely to become Congregationalists; people 
with a warm flow of feeling are likely to become Methodists; in- 
dividuals who long for the beauty of hturgical worship are likely to 
become Episcopalians; and people who want an authoritarian em- 
phasis are likely to become Lutherans. At all times, however, we must 
remember that all of these different Protestant churches are part of 
that great Universal Church spoken of by the Aposdes and cele- 
brated in creed and in liturgy as the Holy Christian Church. 

52 



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53 



OUR CHURCH GOVERNMENT 

5. THE UNITY OF PROTESTANTISM 

Only a few of the major Protestant Christian churches have made 
the mistake of thinking themselves as the sole agents of salvation. 
Most Protestant Christians have the good sense to think of all other 
Protestant Christians as true brothers in Christ. Most every Protestant 
knows that all the other Protestant churches are, shall we say, nearly 
as good as his own and that there are many denominational roads to 
salvation and the advancement of the Kingdom of God. That is why 
Protestant churches have often worked together and that is why 
there is growing cooperation and unity between them. 

Of course, the Roman Catholic churches refuse point-blank to 
participate in this growing fellowship. Indeed, Pope Pius XI issued 
an encyclical on this very matter on the Feast of Ephiphany in 1928 
in which he declared that dissidents must return to the Roman 
Catholic Church if world-wide Christian unity is to be achieved. 
Addressed to the bishops of the church, the encyclical proceeded 
to state: "How then can we conceive a Christian community whose 
members freely maintain their own way of thinking and judging, 
even though it be opposed to the way of others? . . . Meanwhile, 
venerable brothers, it is easy to understand why this Apostolic See 
never permitted your faithful to attend congresses of non-Catholics, 
because the unity of Christians cannot be promoted otherwise than 
by the return of dissidents to the only true church of Christ, from 
which one unhappy day they detached themselves. . . . They must 
return to the true and only church of Christ, which, as manifested 
by the will of its Founder, must remain forever the same as He in- 
stituted for the salvation of all." 

It is sad indeed to hear a similar spirit set forth by an occasional 
group of Protestants who are so ego-centric and so desperately in need 
of further ego inflation (perhaps to nurse a cancerous inferiority 
complex), that they have declared themselves to be the center of 
salvation! Fortunately, this does not characterize the Protestant 
Christian churches as a whole. 

Unity has been expressed for years in the formal cooperation of 
churches within local communities. The Congregational and Meth- 
odist churches, or the Baptist and Presbyterian, or a half dozen 

54 



OUR CHURCH GOVERNMENT 

churches more or less, will often get togther for a union Thanks- 
giving service, union Lenten service, or a union Sunday evening serv- 
ice. Perhaps their youth groups will have occasional parties together. 
Perhaps their officials will present a unified front against some politi- 
cal problem or social malformation within the community. This sort 
of informal cooperation has been going on for years and has drawn 
Protestant Christians together in bonds of unity, understanding, and 
love. 

Sometimes this cooperation takes a different organizational pattern 
in the form of a local council of churches. The free Protestant churches 
of a given community may unite to carry on many activities on a 
planned basis and they may call their organization a local Council 
of Churches, whether or not it has any official connection with the 
Federal Council of Churches. Such local organizations have done 
great good in organizing for Protestant Christian action and have 
mightily increased within given communities a sense of Christian 
solidarity. 

What has been done on a local basis has also been done on a state 
basis. Hardly a state that does not have an organization of churches 
which is active in promoting institutes of religious education, inter- 
church study groups, surveys of under-churched and over-churched 
areas and sometimes outstanding pastors* conferences. An outstanding 
example of what a state Council of Churches can do in the organiza- 
tion of Christian opinion was provided by the Wisconsin Council of 
Churches in the referendum of 1946 when public sentiment was 
organized in opposition to a proposal to amend the state constitution 
to allow the use of public funds for parochial school transportation. 

What has been done on a local and state basis, has also been done 
on a national basis. We are familiar with three forms of this national 
Protestant cooperation. One is the great missionary organization of 
our church women which approaches the study of home and foreign 
missions in a cooperative manner so that all of the women of our 
major Protestant groups are studying the same approach to the mis- 
sionary problem. 

The second form of this national cooperation is the International 
Council of Religious Education supported by over forty of our Prot- 
estant denominations. It plans the famous International Lesson Series 

55 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

for our Church School, correlates and promotes the work of religious 
education and publishes that magazine in the field of Christian edu- 
cation taken by the Church School leaders of most of our Protestant 
groups, The International Journal of Religious Education. 

The third and best known of these national organizations is the 
Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. This group has no 
administrative power within the churches comprising its member- 
ship, but it functions as a great determiner of Christian public opinion 
and represents the will of Protestantism to find the common life. 
Organizationally, it is made up of a number of important committees 
in the field of social action, worship, marriage and family life, world 
peace, and many others. These committees study and promote action 
in these various fields of Christian expression. In this way the churches 
themselves arc guided into a great Christian experience. Perhaps this 
is the group which will one day combine us into a great Protestant 
Christian Church. 

Other instruments which make for a united Christian front are also 
at work. Among them are the great world conferences, the most re- 
cent of which were held in the summer of 1937 at Oxford and Edin- 
burgh. These conferences were made up of over 400 delegates from 
churches all over the world. In the case of Edinburgh, it represented 
122 Christian communions in forty-three different countries. The Ox- 
ford Conference discussed the life and work of the Christian and the 
church. The Edinburgh Conference discussed the faith and order of 
the church. All testimonies united in declaring that these were great 
conferences. The Edinburgh Conference in particular studied the 
matter of a united Christendom. Committees worked on such great 
theological matters as the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church 
of Christ and the Word of God, the communion of saints, the minis- 
try and sacraments of the church, the churches united in life and 
worship. This committee in particular studied the various conceptions 
of church unity, obstacles which stood in the way and patterns mak- 
ing for unity which now we should seek. Careful and detailed state- 
ments were made which concluded with an affirmation of union. 
Among the great declarations of this aflSrmation are these, the words 
of which sound like a clarion call of silver trumpets: 

56 



OUR CHURCH GOVERNME>rT 

"We arc one in faith in oui Lord Jesus Christ, the in- 
carnate Word of God. We are one in allegiance to him as 
Head of the church, and as King of Kings and Lord of 
Lords. We are one in acknowledging that this allegiance 
takes precedence of any other allegiance that may make 
claims upon us. 

"Our unity is of heart and spirit. We are divided in the 
outward forms of our life in Christ, because we understand 
differendy his will for his church. We believe, however, that 
a deeper understanding will lead us towards a united 
apprehension of the truth as it is in Jesus. 

"We desire also to declare to all men everywhere our 
assurance that Christ is the one hope of unity for the world 
in face of the distractions and dissensions of this present time. 
We know that our witness is weakened by our divisions. 
Yet we are one in Christ and in the fellowship of his Spirit. 
We pray that everywhere, in a world divided and perplexed, 
men may turn to Jesus Christ our Lord, who makes us one 
in spite of our divisions; that he may bind in one those who 
by many worldly claims are set at variance; and that the 
world may at last find peace and unity in him; to whom be 
glory for ever." 

Out of this conference was born the World Council of Churches. 
This is still an embryo organization, for necessarily during the World 
War it was quiescent. Now its committees are at work again, par- 
ticularly in great projects of reclamation in war-torn Europe. The 
major Protestant churches of the world, together with some of the 
Eastern Orthodox groups, belong to the World Council. Here is a 
bridge transcending nationalistic hatred and selfishness and binding 
Christians together all over the world. To it we may look for much 
in the future. 

Meanwhile, Protestant church unity is in the air. It is proceeding 
by the merger of various denominational groups. We do not have to 
wait until we can all be bound together in one great united Prot- 
estant Church. The way to unite is to unite. Therefore, various de- 

57 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

nominations have united with their most compatible friends. Here 
is a record of some of these mergers: 

1. 1930 — ^Three Lutheran groups united to form the United 
Lutheran Church. 

2. 1931 — ^The Congregational and Christian churches united to 
form the Congregational and Christian Church. 

3. 1934 — ^The Evangelical Synod of North America and the Re- 
formed Church in the United States united to form the Evangelical- 
Reformed Church. 

4. 1939 — ^The Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant Church united to form 
The Methodist Church. 

5. 1946 — ^The Evangelical Church and the United Brethren in 
Christ united to form the Evangelical and United Brethren Church. 
Other churches are talking merger, such as the Presbyterian and 
Protestant Episcopal churches. More and more of these mergers will 
occur. Meanwhile, there is developing a great sense of solidarity, a 
growing recognition of the fact that we are all members of the same 
body, all perpetuating the same Christian democratic tradition which 
is characteristic of the American spirit, of doing the various tasks 
which need to be done for the on-gonig life of the church on the 
earth. Of the Protestant Christian Church it may increasingly be 
said, that which St. Paul wrote so many years ago: 

"There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in 
one hope of your calling. 

One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 

One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, 
and in you all. 

And he gave some, aposdes; and some, prophets; and some, 
evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, 
for the edifying of the body of Christ; 

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowl- 
edge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.'* 

58 



EPILOGUE 

THE FRUITS OF PROTESTANTISM 



EPILOGUE 
THE FRUITS OF PROTESTANTISM 

Judge the Reformation by its fruits of social and political patterns. 
Compare these fruits with the simple gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ as contained in the New Testament. Time and time again 
the social and political groups who were involved in reformation 
would make earnest eflEorts to bring their personal and their group 
conduct into conformity with the ideals of the Kingdom of God as 
set forth by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and in his other 
teachings. 

Think for a moment of the outstanding centers of Western civiliza- 
tion. What do you think? Surely your list would include Great 
Britain, Scandinavia, and the United States. Here are the centers of 
Western civilization. In these countries there has been no decadence, 
no inward social or political decay. In these countries there has been 
fine social sensitiveness; political, religious, and cultural liberty; a 
high level of economic security and an aggressive attempt to advance 
the bulwarks of civilization. These are conspicuous Protestant Chris- 
tian countries. 

The New World forms an interesting basis of comparison between 
the effect of Catholic and Protestant culture upon it. The Latin 
American countries, for example, were setded by Roman Catholics 
and the American colonies, with one exception, were setded by Prot- 
estant Christians. In Latin American countries the Roman Catholic 
church has had full power to do what it has wanted to do. This was 
true from the very beginning, because the Spanish conquest of Latin 
America was also a Roman Catholic conquest. Read what any ob- 
server has to say about the effect of Catholic culture upon the 
personal and social life of Latin America. At first the church ruled 
with an iron hand. In an article on the Roman Catholic Church in 
Latin America, Lewis Mann said this of those early days: "In spiritual 
affairs the Church was supreme, and one by one the lights of intel- 
lectual and religious freedom went out all over Latin America. The 
frozen night of dogma and blind obedience settled down on the souls 

60 



EPILOGUE 

of the Indies, and if by chance a cry of protest or a whimper of fear 
broke out of the darkness, it was immediately strangled by unseen 
hands. For there was a terror that walked by night; the Inquisition, 
to all appearances omniscient and omnipotent, left not untouched the 
palace of the viceroys or the hut of the beggary, and if it be argued 
that the number of unfortunates put to death or otherwise punished 
in the New World was less than in Spain, this cannot be attributed to 
a greater leniency of the American Tribunal, but to a stricter watch 
which eflEectually uprooted all dissent or hberty." (Religion in Life, 
Vol. XII, No. 4, Page 519). 

This control the Roman church has had over Latin America ever 
since, and we know that it exists in great force today. Again, con- 
cerning the present situation, Lewis Mann said, "There are those who 
say: *Why send Protestant missionaries to Latin American countries, 
which are, after all. Christian?' . . . Let him live long enough in 
Latin America to be able to penetrate beneath the iron panoply of 
Catholicism, and he will find the living body of paganism, naked 
and unashamed. And should he then protest against the Catholic 
Church, as once he did against the Protestant, he will find that the 
ancient institution has never learned what liberty' means. If he 
has a Christian heart at all, he will weep for his brethren, and instead 
of asking, *Why send laborers to the field?' he will urgendy entreat 
that more be sent, and still more." {Op. cit,, page 523.) 

Contrast this reaction to that of anyone who looks at the United 
States. Paganism, we have plenty of, to be sure; and today we have 
an occasional sore spot of Protestant intolerance but by and large the 
picture is different. The amazing growth of the Roman Catholic 
Church in the United States is evidence of the tolerance of Protestant 
Christians who colonized the United States in the beginning. Here 
in the cradle of political and personal liberty with a high regard for 
human personality and of those superb advances which have been 
made in the realm of human living, and which have brought civiliza- 
tion to its most superb expression in the United States. 

To be sure, the fruits of the true Roman Catholic religion are 
often beautiful and helpful. Nothing more lovely and touching can 
be found than the devotion of the sisterhoods of the great Catholic 

61 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

hospitals which extend their healing help to Protestants and Catholics 
and non-churchmen alike. Beautiful also are some of the saindy souls 
which Catholic culture produces. 

Unfortunately, these fruits must be taken with the political activity 
of the Vatican which operates one of the greatest political machines on 
the face of the earth. Everyone is familiar, for example, with the 
political pressure the Vatican exerts in European politics; its support 
of the Franco government in Spain, its support of the Polish regime 
before the war, its concordat with Mussolini, its world-wide system 
of clerical reporting, and all the other pressures which it exerts. 

The beauty and usefulness of Protestant religion is untainted by 
this kind of political activity. Protestants have neither the stomach 
nor the organization for it. Any political action that stems out of 
Protestant Christianity comes from Protestant Christians engaging in 
the normal support of activities, rather than from the organized church 
as such. We believe that this is much better democracy. We have 
no Vatican to which the President can send a special envoy or 
ambassador. We have no unanimity of political opinion which can be 
taken back by the envoy to the President and Secretary of State. Our 
people reflects whatever Christian spirit they may hold, and tie into 
the affairs of the government on their own, let come what may. The 
thing which does come is the amazing democratic and Christian 
culture of Great Britain and the United States. 

This social and political fruitage of Protestant Christianity does not 
grow by itself. It is the result of a sincere attempt on the part of Prot- 
estant Christians to live their religion. They take the ethical principles 
they hear at church and try to put them into action. Democracy has 
never worked on any other basis or in any other culture. 

This means that if democracy, as we know it in the United States, 
is to continue, Protestant Christians must become increasingly alert, 
and sincere and active in their religious expression. They must do 
three specific things: 

1. They must support the particular church to which they belong, 
remembering their confirmation or membership vows to support it. 

(a) By their prayers. They must often think about the welfare of 
their church and pray for its health and well-being. 

62 



EPILOGUE 

(b) By their presence. This means that they must regularly at- 
tend Divine Worship which is the central function of the 
church. Here they come and express their solidarity one with 
another. They cannot support Divine Worship in absentia. 
Protestants who stay away with regularity from Divine Wor- 
ship are not Protestants at all but non-churchmen. 

(c) By their gifts. Generously they must put their money into the 
growth and activities of the church. 

(d) By their service. They must put themselves into the church 
and meet with other people for committee work, for study, and 
for personal service. We must learn that we simply are not 
Christian at all without such prayers, attendance, giving, and 
service in relation to our church. Jesus spoke of it when he 
said, "He that is not with me is against me, and he that gather- 
eth not with me scattereth." (Luke XI:23). 

2. We must evangelize. We must spread the gospel in both a 
personal and corporate way. If religion, as we understand it, means 
anything to us at all, we ought to tell other people about it. We ought 
to make a real attempt to interest them and to win them for Christ 
and his church. This is personal evangelism and every Protestant 
Christian ought constandy to be at work in this way. 

He also ought to support the great missionary program of the 
church which is an instrument open to him for projecting himself 
and his evangelistic urge into the whole world. Only when he and 
untold millions of people like him engage in this kind of activity 
will the Kingdom of God be advanced in a large way upon this earth. 

3. We must relate the Christian insights which the church gives us 
to all the social and political and personal problems that we face. 
Take the Sermon on the Mount and square it up with your personal 
life. Then you will become a living Scripture. Take the Sermon on 
the Mount with its great teaching concerning respect for personality, 
reverence for life, and the Golden Rule. Tie it up to industrial con- 
ditions, to wages, to living and housing conditions, to recreation, to 
the liquor industry, to political activity, to international relations, to 
war and peace, and to the United Nations. In these ways the sensitive 
regard of the Protestant Christian Church for human beings, which 

63 



A PROTESTANT PRIMER 

reflects the point of view of Jesus himself, will come to life on a 
magnificent scale. This is the way to expedite the real out-reach of 
the Protestant Christian Church. 

Said Jesus, in words which reflect the Protestant spirit, 
"Wherefore by their fruit ye shall know them. 
Not every one that saith imto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter 
into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will 
of my Father which is in heaven." 

(Matthew VII:20-21) 



There are persons in every church, ministers and laymen, of your 
denomination and of other denominations, who would welcome the 
knowledge of A Protestant Primer and the privilege of reading it. 
Why not tell them of it? Better still, order four copies for one 
dollar and distribute them to the most influential Protestants in 
your community. 



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